Edit Data series color without data

[Christian_Ku]

Hi,

Currently I'm building a template excel file for my company and therefore have no data. The file also should include charts bsaed on future data. However Excekl uses a third line color yellow which is hardly noticable on a white background. I don't want to change the background but the color of the line. This seems impossible to do however without clickable data points. I have tried almost anything and also searched the net. I think this is simply impossible without data (and as there is a lot of data to enter I have not done this manually for 1 row for example because that is a very laborous exercise). But if anyone can contradict that please do!

Thanks

 

[cornflakegirl]

Can you not put in one dummy data point for each series - that will create the legend, and you can do all the colour changes by double clicking on the legend marker.

 

[Christian_Ku]

That's what I've done. It does work but it is still a ***** to do for every chart (e.g. 20+). Especially because I also can not change the order in which series were added. Which means if I want to change that, I will have to remove all series and add them in proper order, even a bigger job!

 

[cornflakegirl]

Can you not create one chart, format it the way you want, and then copy it for all the other charts - just change the source each time?

I don't understand your problem with changing the order of the series.

However, if you're have a lot of charts, maybe you should consider creating them with code - then you can set the formatting once, and presumably deal with your order problems too?

 

[Christian_Ku]

Yeah, I thought about doing it with code. Now I've done it all by hand and that cost me more than a day in total (and is really boring). I will make a script the next time if this occurs.

About the series; if you make a custom chart format you can apply that format to any chart in the future. But, if all charts are already created but you want to use that specific formatting AND want that every serie has the same color in every chart (f.e. A is red, B is blue etc) you need to be sure that A is the first serie and B the second ALWAYS. The problem is that if your formatting says that serie 1 is red and serie 2 is blue and B is added first (by someone else) you have to remove B and add it as second serie. This is tedious work and a change in series order should be much easier but can not be done in Office 2003 as far as I know.

Hopefully this illustrates my problem better,

Thanks all for the help.

 

[cornflakegirl]

Yeah, I don't know of a way to change the series order (formatting and all) without reassigning the source data. If someone puts the series in in the wrong order, make them do it all again from scratch - they'll soon learn!

With something that boring, I always try to code it - even if doing so takes longer than doing the job by hand! (Don't tell my boss.)

 

[Andy Pope]

This may be a workable solution.

Change the colour of the Line series in the template's Color palette.

Tools > Options > Color > Chart Lines:

Obviously any item that uses colorindex number 27 will also be affected.